The Pigs Will Have Their Day

Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. An old mortgage man said that to me a long time ago. The hogs it would seem are about to get slaughtered. You may laugh at the small size of these gatherings on Wall Street but you should start watching this. The middle class has been decimated and the children of the middle class have nowhere to go, but to the streets. And no one has been listening.

FDR saw this coming in the thirties. He knew that if inequities were not addressed then there would be trouble. So The New Deal emerged and he gave the middle class a piece of the pie. Now you have that pie divided into tiny slivers with the one percent taking the giant gulp. Should there be this type of inequality in society? This is the basic question of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Strip it down and it is about the removal of representation for the middle class. America is truly an oligarchy with only the wealthy represented in Washington. The Middle Class simply does not have a lobby to push their concerns. The middle class is not represented because there is no room at a table composed of bankers and corporations. So what is left for them but to take to the streets for those who have disenfranchised?

Dis-comfort. That is the opposite of comfort. The people in Washington are all comfortable. They have no dis-comfort. Demonstrations by their nature create dis-comfort. They shake up the status quo. There is no clear agenda and there are no leaders. But there will be dis-comfort as the protest grows. This is the age of social media and it could well spider out. And it would seem Washington will not see the writing on the wall until it comes to their door.

That old mortgage man went on to explain that if you take too much, if you are greedy, then you might end up getting nothing. Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. Someone should write it down and send it to every person in Washington who has forgotten about who they really are supposed to represent.

Because the pigs will have their day.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man...a story of one man trying to find the American Dream

                                                                   

I want to talk to the President....

And tell him trickle down has killed all the middle class lawns. And that the credit faucet has been turned off for anyone not in the one percent and the lawns have become dormant and are in danger of dying. I would tell him middle class people are  no longer represented in Washington and he has let a group  of people choke off all the water under the lie of fiscal conservatism. I would tell  him middle class people are not dressing as well and their cars are getting older. I would tell him that their houses are worthless and that unless he restores their value the economy is doomed to sputter.

I would tell the President the banks do not want to lend to the middle class anymore. I would tell him they have upped the requirements for a loan that nobody can qualify. I would tell him that credit is being withheld and it is starving the very people he needs to bring about a recovery. I would tell him he should allow people with good credit to refinance regardless of the value of their home. He should tell the appraisers to stop using foreclosures and short sales for comparables. I would tell him to pass a law making it mandatory for holders of second mortgages to subordinate to the first loan and allow people to refinance their home.

I would tell him that the banks will  not lend anymore and he has to establish a National Bank to lend to the middle class. I would tell him to walk through Home Depot or Starbucks or Target and see all the people working there who used to have white collar jobs. I would tell him to notice there are no customers. I would tell him that unless he gives buying power back to the John Q Middle class our economy is doomed. Maybe our republic. I would tell him he has to fight the bad guys now even if he loses. He has to fight the one percent, the banks, the corporations. He has to fight for the little guy who elected him.

I would tell the President time is running out. That it is going to be a long hot summer. I would tell him it is not too late. I would tell him to start on housing. Start with the middle class's biggest asset. I would tell him if he restores housing then he can grow the economy from the bottom. That is where the grass has to be watered. I would tell him to call me or any middle class person and find out what is really happening in America. I would tell him this could be his greatest moment, but he has to act now.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off in the summer

Watch the documentary: The One Percent

Four hundred families own more wealth than fifty one percent of the country. That would be 155 million people have less than four hundred families. Chew on that one. Or one percent of our population has more wealth than ninety percent of the rest of the population. And of course it is getting worse. The faucet you hear getting shut off is the last trickles of any hopes of stimulus that would help people get back on their feet. Political winds have eliminated that. We are now truly on our own.

The documentary The One Percent made by the one of the scions of the Johnson and Johnson family is interesting in that he manages to interview his own family about this vast inequity of wealth that has put us back to a Nineteenth Century footing of robber barons and serfs. We are serfs now. You  just don't know it yet. But you will. Social Darwinism is about survival of the fittest and it has been applied to the middle class. The earlier tenants of Social Darwinism said that the rich should survive and the poor should be cast out. This will keep the poor from having more children.

In the one percent the average income is ten  million dollars a year. The average income for all other Americans is 35,000. What is interesting in the film is the interview with Milton Freidman who gets disgusted and ends the interview at the end. He is Mr. Trickle Down. Support the rich and they will create jobs for everyone else. This has certainly proven to not be true. Nothing trickles down and few jobs are created. Maybe you just  heard General Electric just paid no tax. Nada. None. The average American pays more tax than the those in the one percent.

In the Progressive Era of the last century America had huge disparities in wealth that brought about reform: social security, medicaid, medicare, the graduated income tax. What has happened is we are back to that tipping point again except we are not in Progressive era. We are in the era of Retribution. Revenge of the Trickle Downs who believe the Middle Class did this to themselves. We have seen the protests in Wisconsin. Watching the documentary The One Percent, you get the feeling that is just the beginning.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off on April 26th

The Populism of It's A Wonderful Life

It's A Wonderful Life would fit right in with our times. The story of George Bailey is essentially a working mans story or rather a populist tale. George's quest to go to college is rooted in the fact that there will be a bigger world open to him once he has an education under his belt. Harry his brother goes and comes back the man moving into the bigger white collar world of his wife, but George stays behind in penny anne world of the Building and Loan to sweat it out in the small town of Bedford Falls.

The populism of the story is found in the ancillary characters of the town and George's family of his mother who runs the Bailey boarding home and his father the patriarch of old.  We are drawn to Ernie the cab driver, Bert the cop, Violet Biggs the harlot, Mary Hatch the small town girl who goes to college, but returns to the small town provincial world of Bedford Falls. Sam Wainright is the exception who comes from a rich family and moves in the bigger world of New York. Sam will bail George out but he is juxtaposed against George 's provincialness, his small town virtues that keep him in the town while others go on to find fortune and fame.

Henry Potter is the the arch type villain of the one percent. The man of the upper crust who is incurably corrupt, but holds all the power strings and is eternally trying to get the Building and Loan and bring down George. Again it is George's everyman qualities against the powerful banking interests of the privileged class with the final showdown when Potter accuses George of losing the eight thousand dollars. In the final scene of the movie George is rescued by the populace, Annie the housekeeper, Mr. MGower the druggist, Bert the cop, Ernie the cab driver, and finally Sam Wainright is given redemption by wiring him the money as Harry Bailey eschews the bigger world of a military ceremony to rush back and help his brother.

The movie resonates still because we respond to populist sensibilities. We inherently distrust the Potters of the world or the powers that be. We are now in an age where people rail against bonuses and the one percent getting all the wealth. This is why Its A Wonderful Life is still relevant. We are, after all, in the year 2010, a populace that still yearns for the small town life where good trumps evil and the rich guys lose in the end.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in January